Let Him Go
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Caryl AU. Oneshot. When she could have loved him, he wasn't ready. Now he's ready... Carol/Daryl


**AN: This is in response to the Tumblr prompt that wanted Carol and Daryl as star-crossed lovers. As the prompt suggests, theirs is a love that simply can't be. That means that, though nothing too explicit is here, Carol is with Abraham in this "scene" even though the main of the idea of the story is her unfulfilled relationship with Daryl. Therefore, if you're one of those people who cannot handle the idea of her ever being with anyone else, this isn't the story for you.**

 **If you do decide to read, I hope you enjoy.**

 **As always, I own nothing from the Walking Dead.**

 **Let me know what you think!**

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Carol had never loved someone the way that she loved him. Never. It was a feeling that was engulfing. She almost found it impossible to breathe because it closed in on her.

No. It wasn't the love or the want or the desire—or whatever it might be, because she'd never been entirely sure what to call it—that was closing in on her. It was the knowledge that it was all irrelevant.

She'd wanted him before too. She'd loved him. It had always been him. It had only been him. He'd been, and she knew it now, the only one that she'd ever loved that way before—even if she'd never have even been able to explain why. Maybe what hurt the most now was that when she wanted him before? She might have had him. She was in a position, then, to have him. Now? She was in no such position.

On the table in front of her was the receiver for the telephone. In her hand was the letter that had come in the mail—the letter that Abraham had shuffled to the side for her, right into the stack of everything else that came for her, without giving it a glance beyond checking for her name on the front of the envelope.

He didn't know that the contents of the letter was going to be something that reminded Carol of ghosts that she couldn't quite exorcise. How would he know? She'd only barely mentioned Daryl before. There wasn't much to tell, after all. There was no need to bore the man that loved her—the man who had reminded her, when her first husband had made her forget it, that she could still be loved by a man—with stories about another man who wasn't ready to love her when she'd been ready to love him.

But the letter—the one she held in her hands now? It said that he was ready to love her now. It said that he was ready to make the commitment to her that he hadn't been ready to make then. It told her that, before, he'd been afraid, even though he'd wanted to make the commitment to her back then.

What was the saying?

Too little, too late.

But thinking that hurt. It hurt because it was something that Carol had wanted so much. How could she not?

She'd loved him for a long time, and she'd loved him without reason or rhyme. She'd loved him almost as though loving him were something natural to her—something that she was simply born to do.

Daryl Dixon had been her high school crush. She'd first fallen in love with him before she was even old enough to understand what that meant. He was the high school bad boy without ever having done a thing, at least as far as Carol could recall, to have earned the reputation. The bad boy reputation? It came with his name. It came with the town's knowledge of what his father had been—a man gone so long that he almost existed only as legend. It came from an older brother who had been everything that everyone might associate with "bad boy," but it had never belonged to Daryl.

Daryl was quiet. He was reserved, but he was always polite—at least to Carol. He kept to himself and, as far as Carol knew, hardly ever even said "boo" to anyone.

And Carol had a hard crush on him. She'd fallen fast and she'd fallen hard for him. She'd fallen completely. But he never noticed her. At least, he never noticed her as anything special. He treated her like he treated every other girl in school. He did her no harm, but he paid her no mind.

So she'd given up on trying to get his attention and she'd done what most girls did when their crush didn't notice them, though she'd done it with a heavier heart than some and with a greater determination to put him entirely out of her mind. She'd found someone who did notice her.

Edward Peletier—Ed—had very nearly been her undoing. It wasn't right away that she knew what he would be, though. He'd kept so much of himself under wraps, in fact, that when she'd first met the side of him that ruined a portion of her life, she'd felt like she'd met someone entirely different. It was almost as though he was possessed. This man, the man that had slapped her for something as ridiculous as an imagined "talking back," couldn't possibly be her husband—her Ed.

She'd remained with him for years. She'd foolishly believed that the Ed she knew in high school, the one that she'd fallen in love with would return. He never did return though. Even after their daughter was born, he never came back. If anything, he just got worse.

Because the worse that he got, the more that their lives seemed to fall apart. And the more that their lives fell apart, the worse he got. It became a snowball effect. She was miserable because of Ed. Ed was miserable because of her. They fed each other's misery.

So, finally, she had taken her daughter and she'd escaped her marriage.

And that was the second time she'd felt the love that had made her realize that—even though she'd thought she had—she'd never really loved Ed Peletier.

Because Daryl Dixon came back into her life.

He was there suddenly, in front of her, and it was like they were still in high school for a moment, despite all the years that had passed. Everything she'd felt for the reserved boy that had been slapped with the unearned "bad boy" reputation had come flooding back.

And Carol found, every bit as strange and inexplicable as it had been before, that she loved him. She still loved him. She loved him like it was something that she was simply born to do.

Carol was a single woman. She was newly divorced, she had a daughter to take care of, and she was face to face with the man that she had loved when she was young. Every single one of those old feelings was renewed. And, for a time, she'd thought it was fate. It had to be. As far as she'd known, he'd disappeared entirely after graduation. He'd gone to some other town in another state. He'd dropped entirely off the face of the Earth even.

He'd almost become a legend himself. There were times, when she'd been married to Ed, when Daryl would come to her mind and she would wonder if she'd made him up. No one else, it seemed, even remembered him.

But not six months after her divorce was final, there was Daryl Dixon. She'd seen him, first, in a store. It was an encounter that had made her turn the corner three times to make sure that she wasn't imagining him. She hadn't spoken to him immediately, still not trusting her eyes, but after she ran into him four or five other times, always in a different location, she'd found the bravery to speak to him.

And he'd remembered her.

They went out on one date. Carol remembered every moment of it with clear precision. She could recall everything from the borders on the cloth napkins to the feeling of the fabric that made up the dress that she'd worn. She remembered, too, what he'd worn and what his aftershave had smelled like.

She remembered the way that her head had swam with the wine and the intoxication of being close to him—something her teenage mind had fantasized about—that was finally well within her reach.

He was a man then, not the reserved teenage boy of her old memories, but still there was something there that was reminiscent of his younger self.

He'd spoken very little during their date. He'd given her just enough to keep things going with a little work on her part. He'd smiled at her—never a full smile—with the half-smirk that she found so irresistible.

The date had gone perfectly. It was the best date that Carol had ever been on. When it had ended? He'd been a perfect gentleman and escorted her home. He'd stood with her, outside her door, while she'd paid the babysitter that had stayed with her daughter. He'd told her that he'd had a great time and he'd smiled at her in the glow from her porch light. He'd ducked his head slowly, not like he was coming in for some attack, and he'd kissed her cheek gently.

Carol had felt like she was fifteen again. She'd very nearly swooned over the kiss alone. She'd felt her knees go weak at the light brushing of his knuckles against her cheek that followed immediately after the kiss.

He'd promised to call her and she'd gone to bed with visions of their lives together—though she scolded herself for getting so far ahead of where they were—dancing in her head. And she'd slept well and dreamed vividly.

But he'd never called.

She'd forgiven him the missed calls of the first week. She'd forgiven him when, after a month, she'd neither seen him nor heard from him. A year later, even, she'd jumped when she'd heard the phone ring because her heart wanted to believe that it was him on the other end.

He would call, she was sure, and he would say that he was sorry for having kept her waiting. He would call and say that it had all been a mistake. It had been a misunderstanding. He'd say that he'd never stopped thinking of her, just as she'd never stopped thinking of him, and he'd beg her to see him again. And she would forgive him. Carol had the ability to forgive a great multitude of sins. She was very understanding. She would understand whatever he had to tell her, too, and she would forgive him on the spot.

Because he was the only man that she'd ever loved so completely. He was the only man that she'd ever wanted with every fiber of her being. He was, if such a thing existed, the "other half" of herself that she was searching for.

But it was never Daryl on the other end of the line. The call never came.

Eventually Carol had given up on him. Much like in high school, she'd realized that she would never have him. Maybe, she'd decided, it was because she didn't deserve him. He wasn't unattainable, he was just unattainable to her. There was someone better for him. She couldn't measure up to whoever it might be.

And she'd moved on.

Abraham hadn't been reserved at all. He'd barely let her catch her breath during their time spent dating. It had been a whirlwind and she'd been fully swept up in it. At times she felt that she still hadn't stopped spinning. Abraham was divorced, though for different reasons than Carol's, from his wife and he didn't hold Carol's failed marriage against her the way that some men might. He had two small children when they met and he'd taken up with Sophia as though she were his own daughter.

He'd listened to Carol's hopes and dreams for a future that she was only beginning to realize was real and he'd done everything he could to make those dreams come true. Abraham worked hard, but he put every bit as much effort into his home life as he put into his work life. Work was important to him, because it provided the money they needed to live the life that they were building together, but it was just as important to him that they enjoy the life that they were building.

And he loved Carol. He loved her like she'd never been loved before. He loved her like she never imagined was even possible.

He loved her like she might have wished that Daryl had.

Abraham built her up and he repaired the damage that Ed had done. He was a good man. He was handsome, he was strong, and he was dedicated to her, his children—among which he included Sophia, and their life together. He was everything that many of Carol's girlfriends dreamed of having, and he belonged, without question, to Carol.

And he trusted her.

So there was nothing to be done about the letter. There was nothing to be done about the man who had found her, somehow, after all these years to send her several sheets from a legal pad that declared that he had left town a week after their date.

His brother had needed something—he'd had some run-in with the law in Florida and family obligation had required Daryl to go and help him. Daryl had left town and he'd failed to return. He'd gotten a job in Florida. He'd met a woman, and then a second and third. He'd never married. He couldn't ever marry because he'd realized that he couldn't love them. He claimed, in the pages of side slanting script, that he could never love anyone but Carol.

He'd never loved anyone but her. He was sorry for his lack of action before and he was tired of living without her. She was what he wanted and he was miserable for having waited so long to tell her.

He begged her, in the letter, to call him. He asked for another chance. He would give her, he promised, everything that he had to give—as little or as much as that might be—and he promised to treat her as she deserved to be treated. He promised to make up for all the time lost and all the opportunity squandered. He promised her that she would, essentially, be his queen.

He would never love anyone but her.

But she was already someone else's queen.

Holding the letter in her hand, the same hand trembling slightly, Carol fought against her desire to cry over the contents of the letter. She knew, even if she would never say it to a man as wonderful as Abraham, that she'd never loved anyone but Daryl either.

Carol reached her hand out and brushed her fingertips lightly over the back of the receiver for the phone, the touch reminiscent of the touch that she could still feel when she closed her eyes from when he'd touched his knuckles lightly to her cheek after kissing it.

She loved Daryl. She had only ever felt for him that way. Everything else? It was different. The love and the want—the almost burning need to be near him? It had been something that she'd felt in her core. It had required no work and it had required no cultivation. It was just there. It was, every bit, like she'd simply been born with the emotion and the attraction. She had been born, it seemed, to love Daryl Dixon.

But it was too little, too late.

He hadn't been able or willing to love her when she could've loved him. Now she wasn't free to love him. Now she was with another man. And even if she didn't love Abraham with the same burning intensity that she had for Daryl? She still loved him. She respected him, too, enough that she couldn't hurt him. She wouldn't.

Carol got up from the table. She took the letter and left the receiver. She fumbled around in the kitchen drawer—a drawer that Abraham teased held everything that they might need to survive the end of the world together—and she found what she was looking for.

Leaning against the counter in the kitchen, Carol read the words in the letter once more. The words on the pages choked her. They were so foreign for the reserved man that she knew Daryl to be. They were a confession. A passionate confession, even, of a love that would have to go unrequited. But they were difficult to read, because even as Carol's mind rejected them, her heart screamed out because the words came from him and matched, beat for beat, her own feelings.

One last look at the words. One last contemplation of his face. One last thought of what might have been but could never be now.

Carol flicked the lighter and brought it to the corner of the page. She watched as the flame trailed up the side of the page, eating the paper and the words scratched on it much slower than she imagined it would, and she held it—suspended above the sink—until the flames travelled almost to her finger and thumb. Then she dropped it and let it finish burning in the sink before she turned the water on and washed the ashes down the drain.

Carol didn't know if her love for Daryl Dixon would ever fade entirely. She wasn't even sure what kind of love it was—so ingrained in her and as natural to her as breathing—so she couldn't predict how it might behave with time. What she did know, though, was that she was telling him goodbye. Now she could let him go. Now she _would_ let him go.

She knew, now, that he felt the same. She knew that he always had. He had simply been unable to say what she'd wanted him to say more than anything in the world.

And now that he was ready to say it?

Carol wasn't free to love him any longer. So she did the only thing that she could do. She let him go.


End file.
